The Banat Bulgarians (Banat Bulgarian: palćene or
banátsći balgare; common Bulgarian: банатски българи, banatski balgari) are a
distinct Bulgarian minority group which settled in the 18th century in the
region of the Banat, which was then ruled by the Habsburg and after World War I
was divided between Romania, Serbia, and Hungary. Unlike most other Bulgarians,
they are Roman Catholic by confession and stem from groups of Paulicians and
Roman Catholics from modern northern and northwestern Bulgaria.

Banat Bulgarians speak a distinctive codified form
of the Eastern Bulgarian vernacular with much lexical influence from the other
languages of the Banat. Although strongly acculturated to the Central European
region, they have preserved their Bulgarian identity. Since the Liberation of
Bulgaria in 1878, many have returned to Bulgaria and founded separate villages
there.

Banat Bulgarians have engaged in literary activity
since they settled in the Banat. Their earliest preserved literary work is the
historical record Historia Domus (Historia Parochiae Oppidi Ó-Bessenyö, in
Diocesi Czanadiensi, Comitatu Torontalensi), written in Latin in the 1740s. The
codification of the Banat Bulgarian vernacular in 1866 enabled the release of a
number of school books and the translation of several important religious works
in the mid-19th century. There was a literary revival in the 1930s, centred
around the Banatsći balgarsći glasnić newspaper. Today, the Bulgarian Union of
the Banat – Romania issues the biweekly newspaper Náša glás and the monthly
magazine Literaturna miselj.